Kingdom of thieves

Kingdom of thieves - Part 11

Prisons weren't that bad.

Narla had this thought and rattled the chain that was fixed around her ankle to a ring in the stone wall.

Really, from the outside no one would have guessed that the beautiful palace of Saynt's would house such terrible appalling prison cells. They were however, much nicer than any rooms available in the ghetto and that lightened her mood a little.

She had had a feeling she would eventually end up in a cell, it was an expectation every ghetto dweller had, but she never would have guessed it would be the palaces own cells. A place usually reserved for traitors to the realm.

Her own crime, simple trespassing seems to hardly warrant this treatment but once her identity was known she was treated like the very worst criminal, which she was but mostly only by reputation. Mostly.

If they were to kill her then at least she had accomplished something no other ghetto dweller had ever accomplished.

She had stood mere feet away from the future breaking queen of Saynts!

No other could claim such.

She knew she was dead as soon as the princess had identified herself, or rather the guard had identified her by kicking her legs out from under her and ordering her to 'show respect for her ruler'.

The last thing she had expected when she entered the royal district was to come face to face with royalty, and good thing to, as it was probably the last thing she was likely to do.

As she thought this, heavy footsteps announced themselves outside the door to her cell, there was a scraping of keys in a lock and the heavy door screeched open.

A large muscled guard with hazel eyes in a handsome face ducked through it and glared at her with hatred written in every line of his tensed body.

She stood and glared back at him, she was still wearing the heavy red cloak she had walked the trade roots with, except one of the guards had hacked a quite a bit of it off, it now reached her knees and no longer covered her head. She tries to look dignified.

Two other guards came from behind him and grabbed her arms. She struggled but they were too strong for her, they twisted her arms behind her back and she hissed in pain, swearing and thrashing.

The first guard brought out a key and knelt to unlock the ankle manacle.

As soon as she was free she kneed him in the face face and tried to twist herself free from the other guards.

The one she kneed swore and fell backwards but did not fall unconscious, she hadn't hit him hard enough. Her efforts to get free proved fruitless, the guards were too strong and had too good a grip, all she succeeded in doing was causing them to sweat with the effort of holding her.

The first guard picked himself off the dirty ground of the floor, his lip was bleeding, he back handed her across the face.

Her head whipped to the side with the force.

"Get her out of here" the guard growled.

"Where you takin me pigs" Narla spat, still struggling as they half dragged her from the cell and into an equally dingy corridor and up a flight of stairs.

None of the guards answered her.

They continued up another flight of stairs and out a door into the sunlight. Being in the dank windowless cell for however long, Narla was not ready for the brightness of the early afternoon sun, she gasped as the brightness seared at her eye balls. The guards resorted to practically carrying her as her steps falteredbecause she could not see.

She kept her eyes tightly closed and felt that they were passing through a large outdoor area, the ground beneath her feet felt like hard earth. All around was the sound of men fighting.

Practice fighting, the clangs of sword fighting were not made with metal weapons but wooden ones and there were shouts of instructions,

"Don't drop your guard!"

"Attack! Attack! Were you trained to fight by your mother!, Do it again! And do it right this time"

Narla tried to open her eyes but the light still blinded her and she decided it would be better to keep them shut.

Her appearance seemed to cause quite a stir, the sound of fighting lessened and she was aware of the feel of many pairs of eyes upon her and her escort.

They passed into a doorway and she blinked her eyes open now the light did not hurt so much.

The place she found herself in was very different to the prison block, the stone here was smooth and the corridor they walked down was incredible high with arches and fluttering curtains.

They passed a doorway through which Narla could see a bustling kitchen at work, hundreds of servants were bustling around, their faces flushed with the heat of the ovens, condensation gathering on their gold slave bands. The smell of cooking meat came to her and made her stomach grumble, she stopped walking to savour the smell but the guards dragged her away. She still had no idea what was happening or where she was going, but her surroundings were becoming more and more extravagant the further they took her.

Eventually they turned through a doorway into the largest room she had ever set foot in.

The arches lined two walls and let streaks of sunlight through that lit up the tapestries and candelabras and falling on a long dark wooden table in the centre, which was laid with all sorts of foods that she had never seen.

The Dwells diet mostly consisted of scraps of nearly off meat, stale bread and maybe some oats to make a porridge using a little precious water and copious amounts of brew, which was more trustworthy than the water, and dulled the horrors the realities of living at the bottom of society.

Nrala had never in her life seen such quantity of food or many of the things offered.

An absurd thought went through her mind that the guards planned to eat all this food in front of her without letting her have any as a cruel way of teasing her with the food she would never have the pleasure of eating.

And she almost thought this true when the guards dragged her to the high backed chair at the end of the table and forced her into before placing more manacles on her hands, before she realised she could move quite a bit in the chains, she just counldn't leave the chair.

Two guards stood either side of the door they had come through and another two either side of a door in the far wall, two also flanked the chair she was in, one the guard with the hazel eyes who's lip was starting to swell. She also noticed archers in the arches, perched on the ledges bows in hand already notched with arrow.

Nrala counldn't help but feel pleased they believed they had gone to so much trouble for her. The hazel eyes guard who had recognised her was obviously taking no chances that her reputation was true. She smirked at him and watched as his mouth hardened into a straight line.

She watched the guards so she wouldn't start drooling at all the food in front of her, she was almost sure that the chains on her wrists were loose enough to allow her to stretch out her hand and take some of the food from the plate closest to her or maybe take a sip of the wine in the goblet slightly to her left, filled with wine that she had never tasted but knew because Kris often drank it.

She almost fell to temptation when the far door opened and all the guards straightened.

And the breaking future queen of Saynts, princess Alyssa walked into the room.

Yeah I know its a long time coming but I had writers block and only just cured it!